


Is It Our Empathy?

by AutobotNightStrider



Series: Humanity [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Blood and Gore, Cannibalism technically. This is zombies after all folks, Child Death, Don't copy to another site, Gallows Humor, Gen, Lance (Voltron) Whump, Nadia is related to Lance in WMUH, Sickness, Vomiting, Zombie AU, Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies, undead au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-28 10:08:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20062276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AutobotNightStrider/pseuds/AutobotNightStrider
Summary: Hunk had helped people before, on his trek across the country, watching it fall into despair and ruin and watching the world collapse around him. He helped people he didn’t know, some of them lowly farmers, some of them CEOs of important companies- sometimes he helped doctors, surgeons, and they taught him things in return for him saving their lives.The skills he learned, he got to rapidly develop when he helped other people when they got hurt.And he got to build his tolerance for the smell of fresh, open wounds on human flesh. It was a good thing in many different ways.Still, it was easy for him to follow his nose to the smell of fresh human blood, and to the sound of human cries, even when they weren’t in English.“¡Más rápido, Nadia, más rápido!”------A short prequel to 'What Makes Us Human?', detailing how Lance and Hunk met.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo, Strider here! I actually wrote this diddy all on my own, and it's a surprise bit for all of you WMUH fans. Even though WMUH itself has come to a standstill, this is something I had written back when WMUH was in it's early stages of chapters.
> 
> It's a short story, comparatively, but no less good than WMUH itself, I hope. Anyway- enjoy!

A lot of things surprised Hunk and caught him off guard. Less things now than before the world had gone insane, but there were still a few things that did. Scant few, but the ones that did now were usually an unpleasant surprise.

Before everything went to hell, Hunk had a bright future. Or at least, he liked to think he did. Hunk was smart- wicked smart compared to others, particularly when it came to books and to machines and to food. He’d blown through his schooling, skipping grade after grade- and had ended up completing High-school a couple years early. He was multilingual, having English, Samoan, and Spanish under his belt from growing up in a neighborhood full of Spanish speaking kids.

Hunk hadn’t really known what he’d wanted to do with his life, but he knew he had a passion for four things- cooking, helping people, science, and machines. So, with his family’s help, Hunk had ended up going to College at the age of seventeen, having landed a full ride scholarship for his chosen career path that had surprised the hell out of him and his family.

However, he ended up majoring in biomechanical engineering, with a minor degree for mechanical engineering, and, for shits and giggles, he had a culinary degree. His scholarship had only covered biomechanical engineering, and mechanical engineering- culinary had been paid for out of pocket, but was well worth it for how relaxing it had been.

Before everything went down, Hunk had been trying to get his doctorates in biomechanical engineering, with the intent of working on advanced robotic prosthetic limbs and the integration of the technology with human nervous systems. He’d gotten a masters in mechanical engineering, but only an associates for the culinary arts, and he’d done some part time internships for the local hospital and pharmaceutical company to learn the more practical side of the field he was going into- despite the fact that blood and gore had used to make him queasy.

Hunk hadn’t ever wanted to do anything with open wounds or blood- he didn’t want to be a surgeon, or a doctor, or anyone who handled any sort of wound or illness. But, in order to get on with the place he’d eventually set his eye on working, he had to have several internships and experience on multiple fronts.

So holding back his gag reflex at seeing some of the emergency cases roll through had become a must. He wouldn’t have to deal with those, he had thought, not that level of gore, not when he was done. He would be in research and building, creating prototypes of the future that would help people.

He hadn’t expected the god damned apocalypse, honestly- nor how the horrors of it would numb you.

The problem that Hunk came across eventually, was that book smarts and brawn simply weren’t everything. Hunk had lacked street smarts- and he’d been so absorbed in his work and in doing activities with his classmates that he hadn’t listened to any of the murmurings among the students and staff, or even over the news.

He was smart, and he liked to help people. His desire to help people was how he’d gotten himself bitten in the first place.

All the same, stopping to help someone had gotten him bitten- and it had still been early enough in the apocalypse that he’d made the mistake of going home, not knowing how contagious it had been. How  _ fatal _ .

Hunk had gotten sick when he’d made the drive home to check on his family. His family had all gathered in preparation of handling the quarantines that were being settled- and none of them had been any wiser as to why Hunk had gotten sick. They knew about the bite- but they didn’t know what would happen.

His family had ended up keeping incredibly detailed notes of his symptoms and had dated the exact times of when they set in from the time of the bite, in case anyone else got it. Hunk had been too delirious further in to remember all of it- but their notes had been detailed, and he’d been able to read over what happened when it was all said and done.

Which was also how he knew that he’d been feral for an hour, based on the battery powered clock on the wall and the dated time on the last entry.

It had started with a mild fever, and transitioned into coughing as his lungs felt like they didn’t want to work. By the fourth day, he couldn’t keep food down and he was dehydrating quickly from diarrhea, and had been throwing up anything they tried to put into his body. On the fifth day, his fever spiked, and kept spiking, even when his family put him in a cold tub of water and dumped as much ice on him as they could spare. The sixth day, the power had gone out, so there was no water, no ice- and he lost consciousness as his fever climbed, and climbed, and climbed, and his body had fallen into seizures.

And then he’d _died_ on the dawn of the seventh day, according to their tear splattered notes. His mother’s shaky handwriting had been taken over by his fathers, and his father had rewritten it, when his mother had been unable to finish the paragraph.

But he hadn’t _stayed_ dead.

When he’d turned a week after being bitten, Hunk had… Well… He’d woken up- or perhaps,  _ come to  _ was the better term- in the process of pulling handfuls of meat out of his mother’s stomach and shoving them down his greedy gullet.

It caught him off guard, and it took him several long minutes despite coming back to himself to even stop the constant motion of his hand to his mouth, the chomping, slurping, swallowing of fresh meat sliding down his throat.

The first thing he’d recalled, and could still recall, was how sweet and succulent she’d tasted. She was cold now, long dead and unturned due to head wounds gotten in the struggle, but it was the best food he’d ever had. It beat out  _ suafa’i _ , and  _ pani popo _ , and even the sweetest, most succulent cuts of steak he had ever eaten.

That taste _never_ changed- human flesh was always that sweet, that addictive. And it was even better, even sweeter and tastier and more amazing when it was fresh and still dripping with blood.

Hunk had been surrounded by bodies. So many bodies. His mother, his sisters, his niece, nephew. He’d even… he’d even _eaten_ his newborn nephew, who hadn’t even been a year old yet.

His father wasn’t with them, but he found him later, in his parents room with a half loaded magnum on the floor next to him. His head was twisted unnaturally around on his shoulders, and his stomach had been hollowed out and ripped open like a Thanksgiving Turkey- likely stuffed into Hunk’s ever hungry stomach.

Surprisingly, Hunk wasn’t able to throw up. His body tried- tried to retch, horrified at what he’d done- but it wouldn’t give up the succulent meal he’d had. It still hungered for more, his stomach gnawing at him even though it was fit to burst.

His mother never rose- but a few hours after he’d come to, his sisters had started to twitch. His infant nephew had let out a wheezing gurgle from the mangled pile of blood and scraps his remnants were in.

Hunk realized now, many, many weeks later, just how hard he’d disassociated when he’d so calmly put the kitchen knives through their skills with too much _ease_ to be humanly possible. Bone was hard, harder than concrete, and it should not have been so easy to cleave dull kitchen knives through flesh and bone and into soft, stirring brain matter.

He’d left shortly after burying them out back with their old dog, taking with them the journal and his clothes, and a few personal things to remember them by. He also took his nephew’s bear. _Shame_ at what he’d done drove him from his home- but he was too much of a _coward_ to do what he _knew_ should do.

He was dead- Hunk knew he was. He felt it in the stiffness of his limbs after he’d sat still for too long, in the fact his mind would no longer power down to sleep. He felt it in the permanent chill his body had, and in the lack of pulse thundering through his body. Hunk could walk and walk and walk, or run for miles- and he would never tire. His lungs never ached for air, his chest never grew tight with exertion- he only felt the thrill of the hunt in the primordial part of his brain, and knew that whatever he was…

_ Hunk wasn’t entirely human anymore. _

And Hunk _should_ have taken his father’s magnum and put a bullet between his eyes- just like his father had tried to do before Hunk had snapped his neck. _Hunk didn’t want to die._ But he didn’t want anyone else to die either.

Weeks and weeks passed for Hunk in a blur, watching the world fall down around him. He traveled in groups, left groups, lost groups, and dealt with learning his body almost entirely on his own all over again. He learned a lot of valuable things from the people he’d traveled with- and from his own experiences.

He’d learned so, so much- his desire for knowledge was endless, something that hadn’t ever died even though he technically had- but there was still so much he didn’t know about himself, about why he was like this, and about what he could and could not do. But he made use of what he did know.

He learned that the hunger never left. It could be sated, for a short time, and turned down into something like a mild pang- but even if he gorged himself on the flesh of his fellow undead, he was never, ever full. He was always hungry.

One of the first lessons he learned, in fact, was also the one that had cost him his first group of survivors. He learned that if he ignored the hunger for too long, he would regress. It was a temporary state, thank god, but he’d learned that lesson too late. He went two weeks without consuming anything but water, and his bunk-mate had gotten cut during a job…

So Hunk learned what he could and could not consume, so he wouldn’t ever have to hurt someone again. Hunk had learned that human food was not something he could consume- but he still needed water or he’d dry out. Human food sat in his stomach for a few hours- he could fake social graces with the best of them- but he couldn’t digest it. And what went in must come out. He found it easier just to cheek it, and spit it out later if he could.

His greatest source of nutrition came from the undead.

While he could consume the flesh of his fellow Zombies, Hunk learned almost _immediately_ that it was not even _close_ in taste to human flesh. Where Human flesh was pure ambrosia, absolute divine bliss, like the gods from above had come down to place a blessing upon his tongue, Zombie flesh was like sticking a hand full of fetid garbage in his mouth.

He learned to choke it down. Despite his enhanced senses, and that throbbing feeling in the back of his head that told him to chase, to hunt, to seek prey to fill the yawning hunger that never left his belly, Hunk had no desire to hunt humans.

He used his senses as best he could to help them- which was how he’d ended up following his nose and his ears all the way down to a little back alley building in Clarkdale, Arizona.

The retirement community was almost completely dead- only a few survivors holed up here and there, but a good portion of the undead Hunk had seen were of the senior citizen variety. The older ones had lost their dentures- they couldn’t bite, and thus, were no real harm. But the ones that had been their care takers, their helpers, their families- or those who hadn’t lost all their teeth- were likely the ones that had caused the infection to spread in Clarkdale. And there were still absolutely plenty of those running around in the city.

Hunk had helped people before, on his trek across the country, watching it fall into despair and ruin and watching the world collapse around him. He helped people he didn’t know, some of them lowly farmers, some of them CEOs of important companies- sometimes he helped doctors, surgeons, and they taught him things in return for him saving their lives. The skills he learned, he got to rapidly develop when he helped other people when they got hurt.

And he got to build his tolerance for the smell of fresh, open wounds on human flesh. It was a good thing in many different ways.

Still, it was easy for him to follow his nose to the smell of fresh human blood, and to the sound of human cries, even when they weren’t in English.

“ _ ¡Más rápido, Nadia, más rápido! _ ”

“ _ ¡No puedo, no puedo! Estoy tan cansada y me duelen las piernas. _ ”

It was a man’s voice, and a young girl echoing after him. The girl sounded young-  _ so young _ . She didn’t sound much older than his niece had been- perhaps even younger than she had been.

He followed the sounds of the little girl crying- and he wasn’t the only undead.

The two of them had quite a pack of undead stumbling- nearly running- after them as they ran.

On the norm, Zombies moved slowly, at a sluggish shamble. But the newer they were, the faster they were, and the more frenzied they were to feed, the faster they forced their bodies to move.

The man had blood covering half his face, sticking his short hair down where it streamed down from a wound somewhere in his scalp. The red obscured his darker skin tone, but it was still clear he was either at least half Hispanic, or some sort of Latino descent. He had one hand around his ribs, the other clutching the hand of a little girl who was stumbling after him desperately, a shoddily wrapped bandage around her leg.

They were a beacon of noise and warmth and _food_\- and the primitive part of his brain screamed for him to chase, to hunt, to feed the yawning ache in his belly.

So Hunk ran, footfalls thundering as he bypassed another alley, before cutting down the length of it. The dead down that alley ignored him. He was not alive- he did not smell like fresh meat. He didn’t stink- he took care not to stink- but he didn’t smell like the fresh scent of food in the air either.

Hunk popped out of the alley in front of them, and he watched the man’s eyes widen with something that looked like recognition? The man’s feet still instinctively backpedaled away from Hunk, and his bright eyes flicked from side to side, darting in the search for an alley that was safe to bolt down with the little girl.

Hunk raised his hands, eyes widening as he gestured a sign of peace. “Come on, you don’t have time to dawdle. This way!”

They weren’t far from the building Hunk had taken up residence in for his short stint in the town. If he could get them back to it, then they’d be okay- it had a roof access ladder that dropped down from inside the kitchen, and that lead to the roof, where Hunk had a small shelter of sorts made out of the old storage shed.

It would keep them safe from the unpleasant horde chasing after the man and his kid.

The man hobbled onward to meet him, breathing hard, and Hunk swung down to scoop the little girl into his arms as her leg faltered and she started to drop. He felt the fever burning against his skin as she curled her arms around his neck, her body hotter than she should be, and some deep, deep part of him hoped it was just a regular infection from a wound. Not _every_ wound had to be a bite- not every wound was the end of the road for someone.

He ignored the way she seemed to sigh in relief as she nuzzled her face into the cold skin of his neck.

Hunk carried the girl, and bodily hauled the man along when he faltered too, exhaustion from running for who knows how long pulling at him. Swinging them around corner after corner, he came to the one he was looking for and Hunk didn’t hesitate before shouldering into the building he’d been searching for. There were no undead; he kept them cleared out because he didn’t like listening to the groans, but there was no way to seal the door behind them- and the windows were broken.

With the man smelling like a fresh buffet, the ones that could still smell would still come running- and would bring the rest of the horde.

Letting go of the man, Hunk hopped up onto a chair and yanked down the ladder to the rooftop access that was inside the kitchen. “Go.” He grunted. “Up- quick. I’ll follow you up.”

The man didn’t need to be told twice, scaling up the ladder and leaving blood droplets in his wake, and then he was turning around to reach down for the girl. “Nadia!”

Hunk handed her up, and then followed the man up the ladder. He wasn’t quite fast enough, the first of the Zombies scrambling through the door and latching onto his leg with their teeth, driven into a frenzy by the fresh blood on the ladder. They let go, however, as soon as the thick, black tar inside his body filled their mouth, and he kicked back with his boot to cave in their rotting skull.

He wasted no time in bolting up the rest of the way, twisting around to yank the ladder up just as the second Zombie scrambled through the door. He listened to the poor dead teenager below them moan at lost prey. He slid the ceiling cover back into place, sealing them on the roof for the time being.

The dead would wear themselves out eventually- they weren’t the brightest, and the basic hunter instincts would eventually fade at the prospect of finding easier prey.

The top of the building wasn’t much, but it had an old style storage shed set in one corner that Hunk had converted into his temporary housing. It was home- as much as anywhere could be. It was safe enough, anyway, until Hunk decided to move on.

For now, it was sparsely decorated with a couple old patio tables Hunk had tossed up there, as well as some lounge chairs from an abandoned public pool. Inside the shack he’d managed to make a bed of sorts- even if he didn’t sleep, he liked to sit at night and meditate. It helped with his… Issues.

The man had taken the girl and sat down with her on one of the lounge chairs, both of them looking utterly exhausted.

“Thanks, Hunk.” The man mumbled as Hunk turned to look at him and the girl.

Hunk paused when the man just dropped his name with a lightly Spanish accent as if he’d been using it all his life. “Do… Do I _know_ you?”

“Uh… it’s been a while. I probably don’t look like I used to, huh? But uh- we went to college together, remember?” The man looked back at him, surprisingly blue eyes bright with pain. “I was the one who put laxatives in the instructors water bottle when she called you fat and when she made fun of me from coming from Cuba.”

He _did_ remember that. It had been because they’d been talking about foods, and it had eventually turned to Lance discussing the fact he could shoot fruit off trees for his family to collect- and their instructor had sniped off an incredibly racist comment concerning both of them. It wasn’t just them that she was rude too either- she had been incredibly, incredibly rude to anyone with a slightly off skin tone in the class.

Hunk had thought it was horrible that people like her still existed in their society today.

She honestly deserved the mild case of dehydration via laxatives thanks to Lance being a smooth and sneaky motherfucker. She’d known who’d done it, but there was no proof- and she was watchful with her words again.

Hunk nearly choked on his tongue. “ _ Lance _ ? Lance McClain?  _ Oh my god _ .”

“That’s m’ name, don’t wear it out, big guy.”

He could see it now- Lance’s cheeks were thinner, hollower, like he hadn’t been eating properly like so many others during this goddamn apocalypse. The man had been stick thin already, willowy and spry, but with the lack of food and likely all of the running he’d had to do, Lance had shriveled to almost nothing. Lance had been his partner in gym class, and probably the closest thing he’d made to a best friend in College, and he’d had the best aim at throwing that Hunk had ever seen. Lance made sure to throw pinecones at any asshole who picked on them.

It caught him off guard, finding someone that he knew- that wasn’t dead. It was a good sort of surprise, one of few good ones he ever seemed to get anymore.

“Holy fuck, Lance- no man, I _remember_ you, I remember you super well. We were like two peas in a pod- but you look so… _So different._ But I can’t blame you.” Hunk just stared for a moment, utterly in awe. He’d found someone he _knew_. “I didn’t think I’d see _anyone_ that I knew again.” Hunk ached to go sit across with him and just catch up with him. How was Lance? How was his family? _Where_ was his family? Who the hell was the little girl he had tucked in his arms?

“ You and me either, eh?” Lance gave a faint laugh, a tired laugh. “It’s… it’s been hell, Hunk. Oh! Hunk, this is my niece, Nadia.  _ Nadia, cariño. Este es Hunk, es uno de los amigos que hice en la universidad. ¿Recuerdas que te conté sobre él? _ ”

The girl- Nadia must have been her name- glanced up through dark lashes and watery chocolate eyes. She sniffled and rubbed her nose on her arm. “You don’t have to speak _Española_ for me, Lance.” She huffed, her soft voice raw with tears. “_Mamá y Papá,_” Her voice hitched, and she swallowed to steady herself, “they taught me to speak English so I could go to school like you. _Sí_, I remember you talking about Mister Hunk. Thank you for saving us, Mister, and thank you for being a friend for _mi Tío_.”

Hunk smiled softly. “I’m a little rusty on my  _ Español _ .” He admits. Still, Hunk shuffled closer to the duo, and dropped down into a crouch. He offered his gloved hand out to her. “ _ Es un placer conocerte, Nadia. Vi una foto de tu mamá una vez. Te pareces a ella. _ ”

“Your accent is _terrible_.” Nadia informed him bluntly as she reached out to shake his hand, her tiny fingers barely even able to curl around three of his. “But it was a good try. It’s nice to meet you too- and yes, I know I look like her. _Abuela_ says- _said_, I would always grow up to be just as pretty.” She sniffled softly. “You’re brown like _Tío_ and me though- how come you can’t speak Spanish properly?”

Hunk gave a soft laugh, even as Lance sputtered to shush her. Hunk wasn’t even offended- she was young, and he knew he’d made the same mistakes when he was little. Race was confusing to kids- they didn’t always understand why people were different. “I’m Samoan, Nadia, not Latino.  _ Ou te tautala i le gagana Samoa _ . Spanish is my third language.”

Her eyes grew wide, and she gaped at him a little bit. “That’s not as pretty as Spanish, but I still like it.”

He was surprised she hadn’t said something like ‘you sound like you’re from Lilo and Stitch!’ because he had heard that one a  _ lot _ . Samoan and Hawaiian were entirely different dialects, but unless one was familiar with the different Polynesian languages and how to differentiate one from another, they wouldn’t really be able to tell.

“ I’m glad you do.” Hunk gave her a genuine smile. She was gregarious- and absolutely precious. “Do you mind if I get some bandages and fix up your  _ Tío _ ? And maybe check your leg?”

Nadia frowned softly. “Fix  _ Tío _ , please. I ‘unno if you can fix my leg, Mister.”

“We’ll see about that.” Hunk just smiled at her gently. He straightened, and turned to plod over to his shed. He had a medical kit there that was more intensive than the basic one he kept on him- after all, it wasn’t like he couldn’t track it down if a thief had taken it. Every human had a distinct scent above the sweet smell of food.

And whatever the Zombie virus had done to his brain, Hunk was basically a human bloodhound. And, unlike the moaning morons down below, he could still  _ think _ .

“Oh, _Dios_, no.” Lance breathed.

Hunk paused. “Lance?” He glanced back at him warily, rolling his shoulders under the thick hoodie he’d taken to wearing. His eyes scanned the roof- none of the Zombies had made their way up.

Lance’s eyes were focused on the back of his leg. His eyes watered. “No, no, no,  _ no _ , you got bit.  _ No... _ ”

Hunk’s gaze shot down to his calf, where the material was soaked in dark black where he’d been bitten. With the color of the material he wore, he supposed it could look like human blood. He muttered a low curse in Samoan. “Lance, it’s okay.” He waved a hand, and shuffled into the shed to grab his primary medical kit. He made his way back out, and sat down across from them on the other lounge chair.

“ No, it’s not. You got  _ bit _ \- you’re… You’re going to...” Lance’s arms tightened on Nadia, his lips thinning.

Nadia’s eyes clenched shut, and she turned her face into her Uncle’s chest.

Hunk’s still heart ached for them.

“She’s been bitten, hasn’t she?” He asked softly, honey-amber eyes seeking out the deeply pained blue eyes of his old classmate.

“...” Lance’s grip turned protective.

“Lance.” Hunk shifted. “I’m not going to put her down. Buddy, trust me, that’s the last thing I’d do. Nadia is a little girl, not a ticking time bomb. I just want to know how many days it’s been, so I can know what’s coming next. If it’s still early enough, we can remove the infected tissue and try to save her that way.”

Lance didn’t move, staring at him tightly.

Nadia shifted. “_La Tía Veronica me mordió_.” Her dark eyes looked back at Hunk with a quiet sniffle. “She bit me- I think it was yesterday, maybe yesterday and a half, when the car, it flipped over when _Abuela_ had a fit. Her body was flailing everywhere, n’ she made these scary sounds... It was horrible...”

“Nadia!” Lance bit out.

“She was in the seizure stage.” Hunk grimaced, his eyes darting down as he clicked the case open. “That’s the last stage before the body dies, and then...” He thumped his foot on the rough ceiling, and the moans from below picked up for just a moment more. “You come back.”

They both stared at him, eyes wide.

Lance was the first to speak. “How do you know that? And why do you say it’s okay? You’re… You’re going to die!” He blurted. “ _ Horribly _ ! How can you be so calm?”

Hunk hummed. “I’m not going to die.” He shook his head. He took a minute to first bandage his leg, rolling up his pants leg to tightly tie a strip of scavenged cloth around his leg. It wouldn’t heal, but he didn’t need to be bleeding everywhere and spreading possibly contagious goop.

“That’s… That’s not human blood.” Lance blanched. “Are you immune? Or a vampire? Or something magic?”

He couldn’t stop the snort that left him, and he chuckled heartily as he quickly bound his leg. He rolled his pants back down, and gave Lance a faint smile. “I wish. I _wish_ I was any one of those things- it would be a thousand times better than what I am.”

“Then… What _are_ you?” Nadia asked, eyes wide and soft with uncertainty.

“Dead.” He blurted.

“But you’re alive!” Lance squawked, his shoulders rolling up with a line of tension that spoke clear disbelief. He lifted a hand to wipe blood out of his eye again, but one eye never left the man sitting across from him. “And you’re talking to me! _Right now! _And you’re not trying to eat me!”

Hunk pulled one of his gloves off, and held his wrist out to them. “Check my pulse.”

Lance hesitated, but the lure of curiosity, of needing to  _ know _ , was too much. His hand slid out, and looped long, bony fingers around Hunk’s wrist. He squeezed, and waited. “You’re so cold.” He mumbled, and then counted, waiting to feel for a pulse that would never come.

“I haven’t been warm since I woke up.” Hunk admitted, flexing his fingers once Lance let him go. He tucked his hand back into his lap, and slipped back into his glove.

“You’re dead.” Lance breathed, hand retreating back to cradle Nadia back to his body. “How, though? How are you dead but still… You?”

There was a glimmer of something in his eyes. Hope, Hunk thought, and Hunk realized  _ why _ .

Nadia was bitten- Hunk was Lance’s hope for Nadia turning out like Hunk. Dead, but  _ not _ .

Hunk exhaled softly. “I don’t know.” He admitted. “I… Let me explain how everything happened, okay? Though...” He glanced at Nadia. “A more… kid friendly version, yeah?”

“’M a big girl!” She complained. “I watched Scooby Doo: Zombie Island _and_ I didn’t even cry!”

“Well, _I _cried. It wasn’t a mask!” Lance sniffed.

“ _ That’s _ ‘ cause you’re soft, Lance.” Nadia giggled. It faded into a soft cough, and she tucked into his chest.

“Deep breaths, Nadia. Just rest a moment, hm?” Lance rubbed her shoulder as gently as his shaking, skeletal hands could. “Please- please tell me though. _Everything_ you can. Please- I need to know.”

Hunk bit his lip- the action drawing Lance’s immediate attention to the pearly white of his teeth and how they gripped the soft caramel of his own flesh. Hunk smoothed his mouth out almost immediately. “Alright. But let me fix you up while I talk, okay? Head wounds bleed a lot, and the more you bleed, the more will come.”

“_How_ do you know that?” Lance asked, tone bewildered and overwhelmed by everything he was learning.

Hunk didn’t blame him. Lance was learning this through word of mouth- Hunk had to learn via trial and error. He knew first hand how hard it was to process everything.

“Because that’s how _I_ found you.” Hunk snorted, and shuffled closer with the bandages.

And so Hunk talked. Hunk told Lance mostly everything. A muted version, of course- he didn’t describe the sights of his family, nor how he’d had to put down his infant nephew when the mutilated pile of meat had gurgled back to life. He didn’t tell Lance that when he’d lost control, he’d killed someone and then fled. He did tell him however, that he came back to himself in the middle of gorging on human corpses- that he’d come back in a frenzy, just like any other Zombie.

The last thing Lance needed was any disillusion that Nadia would come back and just be her normal adorable self.

Hunk did tell Lance everything else that he knew. That he had to drink water to stay hydrated, and that the Arizona heat was murder and Hunk had no intentions of staying here for too much longer. He told Lance that he could smell him, and what smelling him and other humans was like. He told him that he didn’t sleep, he still felt pain, and that the hunger never, _ever_ went away.

And then Lance had asked what he ate.

“I subside off of Zombie flesh mostly. Human food doesn’t do much for me.” Hunk admitted lightly, shuffling back over to sit on his lounge chair.

Lance’s face and hair had been cleaned and his scalp stitched, and Hunk had bandaged him up after putting a triple antibiotic on him. His side had been wrapped in bandages to keep his ribs still. He didn’t have any broken, but they were likely bruised from the seat belt shaped bruise that went across his chest and his shoulder.

Nadia’s leg had been treated with fresh bandages and an antibiotic, even if it wouldn’t do her any good.

“Isn’t that gross?” Nadia asked, her eyes tired but bright with fever.

“_Incredibly._” Hunk laughed softly. “It’s kinda like sticking your tongue in a stinky trash can. But, it’s food.” He shrugged, gaze roving over her. She didn’t look good, honestly- and he remembered _vividly_ how tired he’d been during the early fever. She’d been running… She needed food too, but he didn’t have much right now. They’d need it for a dinner ration if he couldn’t find anything later. In the meantime, he could go out and get some things for the two of them.

He shifted to stand, and moved towards his shed. The door was opened, and he tossed his med kit onto the shelf. “Why don’t you put Nadia in here for a nap?”

“I’m not a baby!” She protested almost immediately, her cheeks puffing up at the both of them. “I don’ need a nap.”

“No, you’re not a baby, but neither of us has properly slept in a couple days.” Lance seemed to agree with Hunk over his feisty niece, and the underweight Cuban hauled her up. He smooched her cheek when she whined at him, and he tiredly carried her over to the shack. “So, why do you have a bed if you don’t sleep?”

“Do you really think I _want_ to walk around in the dark all the time?” Hunk’s brows arched. “Being Batman gets old real quick. Candles and books are a Zombie’s best friend, my dude. Now, _mi casa es tu casa_. Please, make yourselves at home.” He motioned them inside, to the makeshift bedroom he’d made along with all of his supplies inside.

Nadia made a protesting noise when Lance stepped in to set her down.

“Nadia,” Lance sighed, “Please, you _need_ to sleep.”

“Canela is gone.” She frowned at him. “I can’t sleep without Canela.”

“Canela? Cinnamon?” Hunk translated, unsure.

“It’s her stuffed pig.” Lance sighed. “We left it at home before we fled Los Angeles. She hasn’t been able to sleep well since.”

“I want Canela.” Her fingers tightened their grip on Lance’s shirt, and she let out a soft, upset sound. “Lance, please- I want my Canela.”

“ _ Oh mi dulce sobrina... _ ”  Lance sighed. His thin lips pressed to her brow. “I can’t go get Canela, I’m sorry.”

“What about if you use this?” Hunk didn’t want to crowd them, as the shed _was_ narrow, but he sidled in just enough to ghost his arm over Lance’s shoulder. He grabbed at his nephew’s bear, and pulled it off the shelf that held all his memorials.

She was little and she was sick, and she wasn’t feeling good. She needed it more than he needed to keep holding onto guilty memories.

“A bear?” She sniffed, eyes scrunching at him skeptically.

“Not just any bear.” Hunk scoffed playfully, cradling the toy gently to his chest. “This is Popo. He guards special _niñas_ against scary dreams.”

Her skeptical look didn’t fade, but she reached out a hand for the bear.

Lance made a ‘tst’ noise with his tongue, a sharp scolding cluck. “ _ Nadia _ .”

“Thank you for letting me use Popo.” She replied automatically.

Hunk handed him over. “Take care of him, yeah?” He said softly. “My nephew loved him a lot.”

She tucked the bear into her chest, and made a surprised sound. “He smells like coconut!”

Popo had been made at a Build-A-Bear workshop, where they’d put one of those scented stickers in him. Well- they’d put many of them in him, because his nephew had been absolutely obsessed with coconut, so Popo still smelled like coconut, even years later and after being dragged through the early stages of an apocalypse.

“Popo means coconut in Samoan.” Hunk smiled. “My nephew said he was brown like a coconut- so that’s what his name became.”

Nadia nodded, and allowed Lance to settle her down on the makeshift bed. She nestled in, and buried her face into the soft brown bear, inhaling the sweet smell of coconut.

Hunk smiled, and stepped back out with Lance.

“Thank you.” Lance glanced up as he shut the door so Nadia would have as little noise as possible. “You’re really kind to her, Hunk. Thank you- you don’t have to be, but… You are. It means a lot.”

“She’s a kid, Lance.” Hunk gave him a faint smile. “She’s a kid and she’s sick- she’s a far cry nicer than some of the other folks I’ve had to take care of. I had to take care of a surgeon once- have you ever had someone correct you on your technique while you’re trying to put their leg back together? And then critique how you wrap bandages? Man- I mean, I learned a lot from Jones, but I think I went a little crazy waiting for him to get his legs under him.” Hunk shook his head.

Jones had taught him a lot, even if he’d been one of the most bullheaded, stubborn, egotistical patients Hunk had ever had the displeasure of dealing with.

Lance shared a soft chuckle with Hunk, and then tilted his head. He watched the Samoan for a few moments, and sighed softly. “I can kinda infer between the lines a little bit, Hunk. Your family… they’re dead.”

“Yeah.” Hunk’s shoulders slumped as he sighed, striding back over to the lounge chairs. He took a seat, and ran a hand down his face. “Yeah. They’re dead.”

“Did you…?” Lance hedged. “You know… Was it you who…?”

“… _Yeah_.” Hunk grimaced. “I wasn’t lying when I said you come out of it savage. You’re just as wild and… And _dead_ as those things moaning in the streets. And if you _don’t _eat anything- if you just drink water and ignore the hunger- eventually it becomes too much.”

Lance moved to sit across from him finally, and he stretched out with a tired sigh. Lance didn’t seem to mind the sun all that much- and in fact he seemed to drink up the sun's rays like he had been missing it. “If you can’t control it, then it wasn’t your fault, Hunk. It was just an accident. I-”

“Please. Can we… Not talk about that? Please?” Hunk’s fingers clasped together, and his knuckles creaked. He didn’t want to think about the what ifs, or if it was an accident or not. “We’ll agree to disagree, Lance. Just… We will.”

Lance bit his lip, but nodded. He sighed, and ran a hand through what hair stuck up out of the bandages keeping his head from getting dirty. “Okay. I get it- I do. Well. Sort of.” He rubbed his fingers anxiously on his knees. “Hunk… I know we haven’t talked in months, and god, you don’t _owe _me anything, but- can you help us?”

“I’ll keep you safe as long as I can.” Hunk nodded. “I need to go out and get you some more provisions, and maybe see about getting you a weapon. What do you use again? Rifle, sniper, glocks?”

“No, I- well, **yes,** I’m a hell of a shot with a scoped rifle, and I’m not bad with a handgun either,” Lance sputtered, “But that’s not what I meant. Hunk- you’re… You’re sane. You’re talking to me, you’re… You’re not trying to eat my face, even though I probably smell like the tastiest enchilada ever.”

“Actually, if you _want_ to compare to a food, you smell like a sweaty enchilada.” Hunk snorted. “I can smell a lot of stuff- body odor? That’s definitely a thing too.”

“Okay! Besides the point!” He tossed his hands up in frustration. “Nadia is all I have left, Hunk. I… I can’t lose her. Help her. Help her become like you. Please.”

And that was the problem. Hunk hadn’t come across any others like him. Hunk hadn’t even heard rumors of any others like him- and he hadn’t been interested in biting anyone- ending lives- intentionally to try and turn someone to see if they’d come out sane like him. Really, if he could go back, he’d have probably, for science, tried to see if his family would have turned. But… He couldn’t undo what he’d done in a detached panic.

“I’ve helped other people who were bitten, Lance.” He said softly. “But… I’ve never found another one like me. I don’t… I don’t know _why_ I’m like this. But there’s no guarantee she’ll end up like me, Lance. I can try, but I can’t promise anything.”

Lance tensed, his eyes darting down to the roof. He nodded. “I understand that. But… Maybe you could… _You know_… Fuck, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but _god_, Nadia’s all I have now. Maybe if _you_ bit her, she’d turn out like _you_ instead of like… Like my sister?”

Exasperation filled Hunk like a flood from an open reservoir, but he knew Lance was just desperate to keep his last family member alive. Honestly, if Hunk was in the same place, would he do the same? He liked to think he would, but he wasn’t sure… One never really knew what they would do until they were actually _put_ into that position.

“Lance… I don’t think it _works_ like that. I don’t think I can just- just...” He lifted his hands and flailed them briefly in sharp agitated motions. How did he phrase this? “I don’t think I can just _supersede_ a bite that’s already taken root, Lance. That’s not how science works! I can’t just _uber-infect_ someone who’s already infected- biochemical warfare and viruses and shit wasn’t even my field of study, and even I know that stuff.”

Lance flinched at the sharpness in his voice. “I...”

Hunk dropped his hands and scrubbed his face. “I’m sorry- I didn’t mean to snap, Lance. I… I _know_ my bite is infectious. But I don’t think it works like how you _want_ it to, okay? And do you really, _really_ want to subject your niece to a second bite? Bites hurt, Lance. They _hurt_, and they’re _scary_\- and I can’t do that to a little girl.”

The Cuban sighed and drew to his feet, anxiously pacing back and forth. “I know. I know, god, I  _ know _ . I don’t want you to bite her, I can’t ask that of you. Okay, I can’t make you do that- I already asked. That was stupid of me to say.” He worried his hands at his arms, his breath wheezing a little from his sore ribs. “Do you have any other ideas though? Anything you haven’t tried? Maybe we can… We can try how you turned?”

Hunk blanched, which was a thing and itself to see for someone who didn’t have a pulse. “Lance, I… Fuck, I devoured my fucking  _ family _ . I feasted until I just woke up again.”

“Did… Did you feed any of the other Zombies human flesh? The ones that you took care of?” Lance asked, swiveling to face him. There was something in his eyes- desperate, frantic almost.

“No.” Hunk shook his head. “No. I didn’t- even _I _don’t eat human flesh unless I have to. It makes me heal if I get hurt- and I don’t hunt down innocent people. If… if I have to hurt someone, I try to find someone who’s doing bad, you know? Rapists, and people who hurt others for fun. I couldn’t just kill someone _every_ time someone turns.”

“ But do you think it would work? For Nadia?” Bright blue eyes fixated on the undead Samoan, and the Cuban man stepped closer, fearlessly dropping his hands onto the bigger man’s shoulders. “Would it  _ work _ , Hunk?”

“I...” He flinched his shoulders a little under the firm skeletal hands holding tight to his shoulders. “It might, Lance. It _might._ Might is not a yes, it’s not a guarantee. But… Lance, I can’t just… I can’t go kill someone. Not when I… Not when my wound isn’t something that needs healing.”

“Then I’ll do it.” Lance said. His hands didn’t let go of Hunk. “Get me a gun. Please- please. Get me a gun and a cooler. I’ll do it. I’ll get you _both_ some- anything for her. Please, Hunk. Please- wouldn’t you do the same if your niece were here?”

Hunk lurched to his feet, making Lance stumble back. Something like fear flashed across the Cuban’s face, before it firmed again in absolute resolve. “God damn it, Lance.” He huffed. “Fine.  _ Fine _ , I’ll… God, I’ll do it. I’ll get you some weapons from the shop in town, and...” He sighed. “There’s still some survivors in town, in Upper Clarkdale. But… Lance, I can’t in good conscious go with you for this, okay? I can’t… I can’t keep the Zombies off of you. And I can’t be a part of... Killing people. I can't-”

Lance settled one hand on Hunk’s shoulder. He squeezed it gently. “You were always the nice one when we were in class together. It’s okay, Hunk. If you can’t do it, then I’ll just have to do it, yeah? I’ve got more gun experience anyway.” Lance swallowed, and closed his eyes. “I can do it. I _can_ do it. I’ll be okay on my own.”

“Okay.” Hunk sighed. “Okay. I’ll… Give me until tonight, and I’ll come back with some supplies _and_ guns, hopefully. Lance? If you get killed out there… She’s going to have _no one_. You know that, right?”

“It’s worth the risk.” Lance grimaced. Blue eyes stared up into warm, so _lively_ honey amber eyes, and they were so deep and earnest that it _hurt_ to know that the heart they belong to no longer beat. “For her, it’s worth _anything._”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Strider Notes: Strider here again! Just gonna end up finishing and completing this work today, and Hopefully, ya'll enjoy it.
> 
> Stay groovy, as you all get a peek at what happens to Zombies when Zombies eat human food ;)

The Firearms Store was located on Main Street- which had the densest population of Zombies that Hunk had _seen_ in Clarkdale. They were all barricaded in- like the people they had been before had tried to seal themselves in, but something had happened from inside.

Likely someone had lied about an infection, and it had just spread and spread.

He took it upon himself to clear a good portion of them out, and then to clean out as much of the Firearms Store as he could. It had been,  _ surprisingly _ , untouched. But, it was entirely possible that the population of the town had gathered here to get into the store and get supplies when the infection reached them, and had been unable to actually utilize it before everyone had been slaughtered. Thus, Hunk surmised, it created an impassable sea of dead people that kept anyone out.

Well, anyone who couldn’t walk among them invisibly.

When they weren’t driven into a frenzy by the smell of fresh meat milling around, Hunk could pass among them without taking any kinds of aggression. Their blank, dead eyes would watch him, like their primitive brains were confused. Hunk walked like their food did, he moved like prey, but Hunk smelled like them. Sometimes he even confused himself, when he let himself delve too deep into his meditation.

It was vastly easier to do supply runs on his own, even if he couldn’t necessarily carry enough things for a large group usually. However, getting supplies for two humans was almost easy to do. Passing among them without issue though made it incredibly easy for him to loot places without trouble and carry out loot.

Which was how Hunk stuffed multiple bags full of guns and ammo, and then did a stop for food and foraging.

There was no fresh food left, not in the cities, and Hunk wasn’t much of a hunter when it came to hunting down deer or the local goats that seemed to run rampant. He could track them no problem, though there was no drive to hunt and eat them- nor was he a good enough shot with a rifle. He was more the spray and pray type.

But there was an absolute _plethora_ of canned goods that were still well within acceptable dates of freshness- so Hunk collected as much as he could carry.

Being dead has its perks. Hunk didn’t feel exhaustion, and he didn’t feel the pull and tug of his muscles protesting what was absolutely most certainly something that had been past his weight limit before he’d died and come back.

All of his spoils were hauled back through the rows upon rows of Zombies milling about- and Hunk didn’t even stop to think before he sealed them back in, keeping the main avenue safe from too many looters. After all- _he_ could come back for more before he left Clarkdale.

He’d need to feed soon too- and having a selection of calm Zombies to choose from would be good. Hunk hadn’t fed in far too long, and he didn’t need to go wild on Lance or Nadia.

* * *

Lance was an _incredible shot_ with a rifle, and they had a lot of ammunition for him to practice shooting with. So, as the hours rolled by, Lance would down the Zombies that came wandering down the street, with quick, booming shots of his rifle. And as hours rolled into days, Lance’s aim got better.

But as Lance’s aim got better, Nadia got _worse_.

Her coughing grew harsher, and made her throat incredibly sore. It became harder for her to eat anything rougher than a soup or a soft canned ravioli.

There wasn’t much to do to help them pass the time on the roof though. It led Hunk into another quick trip to town- and he returned with some more ravioli for Nadia, and some board games.

Nadia had scrunched her nose at them, having hoped he’d procured some batteries for the old game-boy he’d scavenged out of someone's house some odd weeks back. But, Hunk hadn’t been deterred.

While Lance was out heating up cans of food for their dinners, Hunk sat at the end of his makeshift bed, and let her cuddle up at the head with pillows and blankets while she fought down hard shivers and coughs. He had a pile of board games at his feet, and was shuffling them around.

He held up one of them and wiggled it at her.

“I don’t want to play any more Monopoly.” Nadia groaned, flopping back against the growing piles of pillows she kept asking Hunk to add to. “You’re too good at it. You and Uncle Lance both- it’s fun to watch you both play, but you’re both so mean! You won’t let me win!”

Hunk laughed as he set Monopoly to the side. “It’s not my fault you won’t let me teach you math so you can count your dollars properly, Nadia.” He shuffled through the games again. “What about-”

“_Noooo_. No Life. Life is so boring. You spin the spinner that always falls off ‘cause you spin too hard, and the only thing funny is watching you try and fail to find the right houses to fit in the slots.” She pouted at him. “And it makes you have babies, ‘n I don’t wanna have babies. _Or_ get married. Boys are all stinky, Hunk.”

“Hey!” He jutted his lip out at her. “I’m a boy, and I’m not stinky. I smell very nice!”

She arched her thin brows at him, and shot a look down at his leg.

He followed her look, and pursed his lips. “Okay, _most_ of the time I smell very nice. It’s not my fault my blood smells gross.”

“I know it’s not.” She sighed, and pulled the blankets up higher. “You _still_ stink.”

“I know.” He ignored her scowl as he leaned over to ruffle her carefully braided hair. “You and Lance aren’t much better, though. None of us have had the chance to shower. I wish we had water up here for that- I’d love to wash off all this man stink.” He puffed his chest at her and playfully flexed his arms.

She glared at him for a few seconds, before caving into a guffaw of giggles at his silly flexing. It faded into harsh coughs however, and she scrambled for the juice he’d brought for her, sucking down a couple slurps to make her throat feel better. “You’re really weird, Hunk. What else do we have?”

Hunk smiled a little. He was glad he’d made her laugh, even if it had been short lived. “Lets see… This is an old one, but a good one! It’s called the Farming Game.”

“ Uuuu _ uugh. _ ”  She groaned and flopped back against the pillows. “Noo _ oo _ . It’s just Monopoly but with cows and trees.” Her chocolate eyes focused on him for a bit, and she perused the pile of games he had for her to select from.

“Well, we have to pick _something_, Nadia.” He snorted. “And the Farming Game is lots of fun! Particularly when your Uncle Lance changes the rules and plays the omnipotent farming ghost and gives _someone_ all of the fruit trees.”

Her lips tilted up into a little smile. “I ‘unno what you mean.” Her voice was full of false innocence. Her eyes finally settled on something, and she pointed at it with a shaky finger. “I wanna play that.”

He glanced down, easily spotting just what her bony fingers were pointing to, and it was _his_ turn to groan. “UNO, again?”

“_¡Sí!_” She clapped her hands eagerly at him. “I like UNO, because we can play it in _Española_ and with _my_ rules.”

“Your rules include the wild card being used to make someone draw any number of cards.” He pouted at her. “Nadiaaaaa, you’re ruthless at UNO. Can’t we play something we both suck at? Like Yahtzee?”

“That’s for old people like _Abuelas_ and _Abuelos._” She scoffed, ending in a nasty cough.

Her cough didn’t stop though, and as it deepened, Hunk scooted across the bed to lean her up, rubbing his hand against her back. “Hey, deep breaths okay? Just gotta wait them out.”

It took awhile for her coughing to end, and her breathing was ragged by the time her fingers pulled her juice to her lips to ease her throat.

Lance slid through the door, and the tense quality to his smile said he’d heard her latest coughing fit. It eased before Nadia could see it, however. He held two cans of warmed ravioli, with plastic spoons held in them. “I’ve got dinner!” He chirped.

Hunk chuckled, and moved the board games so Lance could sit with them. He shifted Nadia out of her blanket nest, and ignored her huffing at him for removing her from the warmth of the fever-heated blankets.

She settled in his lap so he could work on cooling her down some, and reached out for her can. “I’m not really hungry.” She pouted. “Do I have to eat?”

“You didn’t eat lunch today, Nadia.” Lance tilted his head sat down next to Hunk while Nadia took her can of raviolis. “You need to eat something, sweetheart. Food will keep your body going. Is your tummy feeling icky?”

A noncommittal shrug was their answer as she poked her spoon at the ravioli and the sauce.

“Man, those smell so good.” Hunk inhaled softly, and gave a sigh. “Not as good as those _empanadas_ your mom baked for us.”

“You remember those?” Lance asked, surprised, and stuffed a spoon full of raviolis in his mouth.

“Abuela’s _empanadas_ were the best.” Nadia sighed wistfully, almost cuddling her can for the warmth. “Not as good ‘s her rice pudding though.”

“I still remember the recipes she sent to you when she found out you had befriended a chef.” Hunk chortled softly. “She was absolutely beside herself over the fact you wouldn’t be eating burned food or greasy fast food for the rest of your college stay. I mean, you practically lived in the dorm with me, didn’t you? Donovan was out partying most of the time, so you and I hung out, did homework, and I made sure you actually ate something that wasn’t instant noodles.”

Lance stuck his tongue out at him. “Instant noodles are _absolutely_ a food.”

“No.” Nadia frowned. “They’re really icky.”

“They can taste good, but not how your Uncle Lance makes them.” Hunk glanced down at her, and nudged her gently. “Nadia, you need to eat. I know your tummy is probably icky, but you need to eat at least a little bit of your ravioli, okay?”

Her frown grew into a stubborn pout, and from a pout into a hot tempered scowl. “No.”

“Nadia. You need to eat.”

“No! I don’t want to eat!”

“But you need to, sweetheart.” A soft frown pulled at his lips. “Is it because the can just looks like too much to eat? Too much for your tummy?”

Upset tears gathered in her eyes, and her lip trembled. “… Yeah.”

“Okay. Then how about you eat just half the can? Or maybe just a couple bites?” Lance reasoned gently.

“ But that’s wasting!” She protested unhappily. “’N  _ Mamá  _ always said that was bad!” Her eyes frowned at the can for a little bit, before darting up to Hunk. “Share with me.”

“Uh-” He stilled at her intent look. “Nadia, sweetheart, human food isn’t for Zombies. Human food is for humans, like you.”

“Share with me.” She demanded, lip quivering and eyes threatening to water.

Hunk shot an almost desperate glance to Lance, hoping the Cuban man would bail him out from the insistent child trying to feed him beefy ravioli. “I- wouldn’t you rather share with your Uncle Lance? He needs it more, and  _ besides _ , you don’t want to get sicker-”

“You!” She tossed her head unhappily. “You, _you_! I want to share with you! _¡Nunca comes!_ You ‘n I have the same germs so I can’t get any sicker anyway!”

Hunk sighed through his nose, a harsh and exasperated noise for the spirited young Latino making a valiant attempt and slowly but surely succeeding at bossing him around. His exasperation only deepened when Lance just gave him a clearly bemused look and offered him absolutely no help to the child working towards a tantrum in his lap.

“Okay.” He sighed. “Okay. Fine. But, I’ll eat one ravioli for every three that you do. You need it more than me. That’s fair, right?”

Her grasp on math wasn’t quite so good, so she only nodded. “Okay. Here- eat your first one ‘n I’ll work on mine too.”

* * *

Bless her sweet little heart, Nadia shared the entire can of raviolis with him. Though Hunk in the long run only ate three or four, thank god. They sank in his stomach like lead, more than half of his focus winding down onto the fact he was nauseated almost immediately.

However, he held out. He’d tried cheeking it, but one could only cheek so many soggy raviolis before swallowing becomes a must, or they oozed in his mouth and talking became impossible.

It was easier to cheek crackers for spitting out later. Raviolis were impossible.

Once Nadia had finished her raviolis, the three of them had engaged in a game of UNO, until she was too tired to continue.

Hunk was thankful it didn’t last more than an hour or two. His stomach hurt the longer he had to hold down the raviolis, and drinking water only did so much to help soothe that pain. The water didn’t really soothe it all that much anyway, so much as it would pave the way for the return journey to be smoother.

Hunk made his way outside as Lance finished tucking Nadia in, and he lit a couple low candles to provide Lance with light. Hunk didn’t need much light anymore- the faint candles and starlight was enough for his body.

That was, he thought, probably the most frightening aspect of the Zombies. Whatever the virus did, it enhanced them. It made their eyes better, their senses better, turned off their physical limiters so they could rip through reinforced wood like it was tissue-paper. It turned on something primal, _wild,_ in their brains, and turned off the part of them that made them human and capable of logical reason.

He’d been in a group once when they’d been ambushed at night- a horde descending on them in the dead of a moonless night. Hunk had made it out- but Hunk could see to run from the frenzied horde. His human companions had been blind like newborn babies, stumbling through the dark and screaming in fear and bringing the starving, frenzied horde right down on them like a tidal wave upon the shore.

There was a lot of things Hunk had learned from studying his own hind-brain reactions, the kind of primitive, instinctual, inhuman responses that his body had when it came to humans and the living. Running away triggered a chase instinct that was, at first, hard to ignore. It was easier now, if he knew to brace for it, but there was the deeper part of him that would always want to chase and hunt and feast.

At least feast on human  _ flesh _ .

Human  _ food _ ? Not so much.

Hunk braced his forearms on the raised lip of the roof, breathing deeply through his nose as he leaned over the edge of the building. His stomach squeezed, and he moaned lowly, nausea burning up the back of his throat.

Footsteps sounded behind him.

“You were looking a little sick back there, kinda like the time you ate too many tacos and we went for a road trip in Blue.” Lance chimed, carrying with him one of the candles Hunk had lit for him. He stepped up to stand next to the massive Zombie, and peered over the edge of the roof. “You doing okay?”

Hunk made a noncommittal noise low in the back of his throat.

“I have no idea what that means, but okay.” Lance propped his hip on the edge of the roof, and looked out into the darkness with a sigh. He set the candle down where he wouldn’t knock it off, before crossing his arms under the jacket Hunk had provided him with. “Thank you.” He mumbled finally. “For doing that for her. I know you said human food doesn’t do much for you, but it made it easier for her thinking she was eating less than she was.”

Really, the raviolis hadn’t been hard to eat. Hunk loved food. _Absolutely_ loved it. He had loved to try new food, to cook new food, and to make people happy by making their favorite foods- but now Hunk couldn’t indulge in any of that. At best, he could hold fruit slices in his mouth and enjoy it, but he couldn’t ingest any of it.

“You’ve been amazing to her, Hunk. Really- god, thank you for this. Just- I don’t think I could have handled this on my own.” Lance admitted, rubbing a hand over the back of his head and itching at his bandages. “She adores you already. I can see it in her eyes- she treats you like a brother. You’re great with kids, y’know? You’d have made a great pediatrician, if, y’know, you weren’t so squeamish when it came to some stuff. Though… I suppose you did bandage my head, and you ooze black sludge now. You’re not so squeamish now, are you?”

“No.” He grunted shortly, aware Lance was grasping for an actual reply. His mouth opened, sour saliva coating the back of his mouth and trailing in stringy ropes out of his mouth as he leaned further out.

“You’ve grown a lot.” Lance mused. “The apocalypse has changed all of us so much. Some of us have gotten harder. More… jaded. Some people kill just because they can, and some people can’t trust anyone, but… You’re still kind, Hunk. You clearly thought that ravioli was disgusting, but you still ate it just to make sure she’d get a full meal.”

“No.” Hunk grunted again. He felt his throat hitch, and swallowed sharply. “No. I can- human food is still good. It tastes good. I taste and smell so much more of it- it’s amazing.”

Lance glanced over to him, and his brows started climbing. One of his hands settled between the tense shoulders hunched over the edge of the building. “If it smells good and tastes good, then-”

Hunk’s shoulders lurched in time with his stomach, and he retched.

“Jesus!” Lance’s hand jerked away from him for just a moment, before his fingers returned, sliding forward to pull the long curls of Hunk’s hair away from his face. “Fuck, okay. So human food makes you sick. Like, _really_ sick, Jesus.”

He panted, Lance’s fingers feeling hot against his scalp. “Y-yeah. I can’t digest it- it just sits in my stomach and hurts until I can’t hold it any- hrr _ BH _ _ ** HRK. ** _ ”  Raviolis and water rushed up his throat and out of his mouth.

“ Oh  _ god _ , that sounded painful. Come on, buddy, deep breaths. Just get it up.” Lance shifted Hunk’s hair into one hand, and rubbed a hand down his back once the other hand was free. He both heard and felt Hunk heave again, but he was glad for the dark so he couldn’t see the mess he could hear splatting on the ground down below them. “Just like that frat party I dragged you to. Remember that?”

“ _ Too much Everclear. _ ”  Hunk burbled wretchedly.

“ You can hold your alcohol, but you definitely can’t hold down  _ that. _ ”  Lance gave him a bemused smile. “I recall us ending up in a similar position to this. Though, you were hurling a bunch of alcohol down into some really pretty roses and probably killing them, and not barfing up half chewed raviolis down into some half rotten alley.”

Hunk retched again, his long empty stomach throwing out contaminated bile.

“ _ Okay, okay _ , no more food talk. Want me to get you your water bottle?”

“ _ Please. _ ”

* * *

On the fourth day, she’d been sitting in Hunk’s lap drinking a bottle of electrolyte water when she’d stiffened, and Hunk had felt her back lurch- and then she’d ended up throwing up all down his pants.

And that had just been the start of_ that_ stage of the virus.

Hunk had experienced it with the other patients he’d been with. They didn’t have a bathroom on the roof, so he and Lance rotated bucket duty, dumping it over the edge when her body was finished emptying itself.

In a few meager days, Nadia dropped an absurd amount of weight- she was nearly skin and bones, but they couldn’t get anything to stay down long enough for her body to drink in the nutrition she so sorely needed to fight off the infection ravaging her body.

She was sick and miserable- she was dying, though Hunk would never have uttered it to Lance- and Hunk ended up having to hold her to keep her fever down given the fact that his body temperature was ridiculously low. Lance talked to her, and they tried to keep her hydrated even when her body didn’t want to keep anything down. She was delirious, burning hotter than Hunk had ever felt before. But Hunk hadn’t ever handled a child with the virus- only adults- so this was new to him.

Nadia wasn’t anywhere near openly conscious- but she was still a kid and still uncomfortable. So she cried, often, which dehydrated her more, and left her even more out of it.

Hunk felt horrible for her. He wished there were hospitals that could treat this, that could make her better- that could give her some kind of shot to make it all go away. But that just wasn’t the case, and likely wouldn’t ever be the case. Hunk had seen all of the Zombie movies. The cures were never ever found.

Nadia moaned into Hunk’s chest, a tiny, choked sob leaving her throat. “ _ Papi, Papi, haz que se detenga, hace mucho calor _ .”

Lance grimaced. “ _ Papi  _ isn’t here, Nadia. It’s Lance- it’s your  _ Tío _ .”

“ _ Lance... _ ”  She mumbled. Bleary eyes looked at him, looked through him, before they closed again. “ _ Haz que el sol se vaya, hace mucho frío. Voy a llegar tarde a la escuela, Tío Lance. _ ”

Lance choked on a sob. “She’s not making any sense, Hunk.”

“She’s sick, Lance. C’mere.” Hunk shifted her over in his arms, her delirious rambles muffling into his shoulder, and he tucked Lance against the coolness of his chest. “Her brain is too hot, but there’s no way to cool it. I’m sorry.”

Lance burrowed against Hunk, and it didn’t seem that the reed thin man cared that the massive Zombie was cold as ice. He tucked his face into his chest, and reached across to hold Nadia’s frail little fingers. A choked sob escaped, before he muffled it down. “God, Hunk. God, she’s dying.”

Hunk didn’t answer. He just held Lance tightly, and rubbed his back. “She’s going to be saying a lot of things that aren’t going to sound quite right. It’s going to be hard- but I’ve got you, okay? You’re not alone.”

“God- thank you. Thank you-” Lance gave a wet sounding sniff, and he shivered against Hunk. “I don’t think I could do this by myself.”

“ _ ¿Mamá? ¿Papi? ¿Dónde estás? _ ”  Nadia’s voice rose, filling the shack with her shaky timbre. “ _ Estoy asustado... _ ”

Hunk glanced at Lance, but Lance only closed his eyes and sucked in a shuddering breath. When Nadia called again for her daddy, Hunk tipped his head to the side and pressed his lips gently against her sweat soaked brow. He wasn’t her father, and neither was Lance, but maybe he could offer her some comfort and let her think, maybe, just a little, that she was going to be okay. “Shhh...” He crooned softly. “ _ Papá está aquí, cariño. Papi esta aqui Tu vas a estar bien. _ ”

“ _ Papi...”  _ She begged, not hearing the voice she wanted to have answer her.

* * *

Where Hunk’s body had completely lost consciousness on the sixth day, as had the other adults, Nadia lost consciousness on the fifth day. And it was then- exactly then- that Hunk knew her little body might have been processing the virus faster. He’d never studied kids turning before, and it was horrible to say, but it _was_ a learning experience.

When Lance had gotten his angry sobs out of the way, Hunk had told him it was time.

So Lance had shouldered his rifle, and taken the cooler, and set off into the town, entrusting his niece in Hunk’s care.

Hunk stayed in the shed the whole time with her. It was cooler in there, and his body seemed to drink in the heat that she produced- he wasn’t sure if it was helping, but it didn’t seem to be hurting anything either.

The big Samoan held the tiny, almost skeletal girl, who had once been a ball of personality and fire. He cradled her tiny hand in his, her limp fingers hot and sweaty against the icy skin of his palm. And Hunk talked, or sang to her, small songs he remembered his _Tina_ singing to him when he was sick.

“ _ Moe moe pepe, _ ”  He’d sing, even if she didn’t know the lyrics and even if she couldn’t hear him. It was the Samoan version of ‘rock-a-bye-baby’, and while the translation didn’t come out properly when converted to English, the song carried the same type of tune.

She didn’t respond to it, but that was fine- Hunk liked to think maybe she heard him in her dreams and took some comfort in the sound of it there.

When he got tired of repeating the same few child oriented songs that he remembered, Hunk switched to telling stories about Samoan deities that he’d grown up hearing about from his  _ Tinamatua _ . He could have sang love songs, and she probably wouldn’t have known, but he didn’t really feel that they were appropriate when she wasn’t feeling well.

Stories about old gods though? Now those, kids loved. He’d loved listening to his Grandma recite them.

“In Samoa, you see, we have stories, traditions and lore passed down from fathers and mothers to their children, and their grandchildren. One of these stories is about Tagaloa. They say,” He began, “that Tagaloa is the creator of the universe, the chief of all gods and the progenitor of other gods and humans. Tagaloa lives in the stars, and from the stars, Tagaloa made the nine heavens, and the skies, and all of the land around us. Tagaloa made the seas and the trees, the freshwater rivers and the towering mountains- Tagaloa made the worms, which we eventually developed from.”

And Hunk talked. He talked, and he talked, pausing only to wet his throat with sparse sips of water from the black-capped water bottle he’d claimed for himself and to make sure that he tried to dribble a few capfuls of electrolyte solution down her throat and encourage Nadia to swallow.

Hunk talked for hours.

He told her about Afa, the storm god; about Mafui'e the god of earthquakes, and the one who had been the keeper of fire until the demigod Ti'iti'i won the fire from him in battle and brought it to the people of Samoa. Hunk regaled Nadia with the tale of Sina and the Eel, and how the king of Fiji had become an eel that became the first coconut tree, and why coconuts had three divots in the shell.

The muffled crack of a gunshot sounding across the near silence of the town startled him.

“ Your Uncle Lance loves you  _ so much _ , Nadia.” He murmured softly, cradling her closer to his chest. The soft rasps of her breath fanning out over his shoulder was the only answer he got. “He would do anything for you, you know that? I think you do...”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Strider Notes: And the last chapter of Is It Our Empathy is complete. In traditional Strider fashion, it is angst and pain, interspersed with a small sprinkle of humor added in to flavor things up.
> 
> Hunk, you soft dumpling you, don't offer people a bite of your food.

Her seizures started that night, shortly after Lance had returned with a cooler heavy with something that had once been someone and a knife tainted with human blood. His eyes were haunted, and that look only grew when Nadia fell into the final stage of the virus’ grasp.

Hunk did his best to keep her from hurting herself, but it became increasingly hard with each one that happened. The seizures started small, initially flickers of the eyes behind the eyelids, and then flexing of the fingers.

They gradually grew in intensity. Not in just severity- because that definitely grew worse. Her muscles fell into spasms, tightening and loosening in random rhythms, her head flailing and her already rasping breath turning into gurgles and choking gasps as she struggled to suck in breaths.

They came quicker, and quicker, the time between each one fading from hours to minutes, until there was no time between them.

When they hit the stage when the seizures didn’t stop, Hunk took the thick rope he had and tied her down to the bed, and then sent Lance out of the little rooftop shack.

He didn’t need to see her die- he would hear it anyway. Well- maybe. Hunk could hear Lance sobbing outside, and his heart ached to go comfort his friend, but he had a job to to. To try and secure that Nadia would survive. So to speak, anyway. It wasn’t a perfect recreation, but with no power and no way to make an ice bath, Hunk couldn’t ever recreate it perfectly again.

Nadia died within half an hour of her seizures not stopping, her body unable to get more than a few gasps of air at a time.

She came back with a low gurgling moan, her eyes sliding open. Her warm chocolate brown eyes were sunk into her skull, her sweat drenched hair clinging to her face, and when her head lolled towards him, there was nothing conscious in her eyes.

They glittered darkly with the same endless hunger that ravaged him- only she had no control, no consciousness on the surface.

Hunk kicked the cooler over to himself, and popped the lid off. The meat inside was still warm, courtesy of the insulating effect of the cooler. Blood pooled on the bottom, thick and tangy smelling. His stomach twisted, mouth watering with the desire to dig his hands into the verifiable mound of human flesh and fill his gullet.

Hunk hadn’t eaten in days- and his hunger was deep. But first, he needed to try. As small as Nadia was, she couldn’t eat all of this without her stomach bursting. Zombies would eat and eat and eat, until their stomachs were full- and then they would sit in a sort of stasis while their bodies digested, before shoving more into their stomachs.

She’d been docile while he’d been sitting there, tied down and her body seemingly tired, but the moment that he opened the cooler and the smell of meat reached her, she started to strain. Her teeth snapped, her shoulders twisting against the ropes, and she shrieked at him, inhuman and feral.

Below her howls, Hunk heard Lance  _ wail _ .

“I know, sweetheart, I know.” Hunk crooned gently and rolled his sleeves up. “I know you’re hungry. It never goes away. Let's see if I can help it enough for you to come back to us though, okay? Your Uncle Lance needs you. He needs you so much, Nadia.”

So he fed her.

One piece at a time.

It took a lot of self control to ignore the wet squish of her feeding, her small teeth ripping through the human flesh and nearly catching his fingers in her frantic feeding frenzy. It was wrong, he knew. Feeding her was wrong in so many ways.

What’s dead should stay dead, he thought- and yet here he was, a sentient Zombie feeding a feral Zombie child and trying to bring her around into being like him. There was no guarantee, no absolute certainty that this would work. But he had to try, for the broken man sobbing outside, so terrified to lose the last of his family, the last of his _world._

Hunk fed her until she grew docile, her bloated belly distending under the ropes as her gurgled cries settled down into almost sleepy moans. When she calmed, he rinsed his fingers off with a bottle of water, and then brushed her lanky hair back behind her ears, prompting only the basest of reactionary blinks from her.

With clean hands, he leaned down to close the cooler and seal off that absolutely mouth watering scent from his nose. He watched her for just a second, watched her stare blankly at the shack ceiling, before getting up and bringing both the cooler and himself outside.

There was nothing to do now but wait, and waiting was the hardest part of anything. Waiting for water to boil, waiting for instant noodles to cook, waiting for a doctors appointment- waiting for a little Zombie girl to hopefully wake up into something conscious.

Waiting was the hardest part of everything for anyone.

Lance was bundled up on one of the lounge chairs, with his head curled in his arms. However, he looked up as soon as Hunk came out, his eyes red and cheeks stained with tears. He took a moment to compose himself, his sleeves scrubbing at his cheeks as he tried to bottle up and put himself back together. “Hunk? How is she?”

“ We have to give it some time. She fed, but…” Hunk swallowed. Fed. Food.  _ Hungry _ . “Now it’s a waiting game.” He gritted out through clenched teeth, fist tightening over the handle on the cooler, his knuckles turning pale from how tightly he was holding it. There was a sharp crack, and he startled, eyes going wide, a reflexive snarl bubbling out of his chest as he jerked away from the noise.

Lance’s eyes also went wide, but they went down to the cooler in Hunk’s hand. He tensed in the chair, watching the large undead man. “Hunk, Buddy… You uh… You cracked the handle. Are… Are you okay?” He hedged, a wet sniff punctuating the end of his words.

Hunk’s eyes closed, and he let out a sharp breath. He moved to drop the cooler on the open chair space next to Lance. The other chair was his to occupy, and he dropped heavily onto it with a groan, curling his face into his palms. “Sorry. Sorry, Lance. I didn’t mean to scare you. It was just… rough in there. It doesn’t help that the cooler smells...”

Through his fingers, Hunk could see Lance watching him raptly, glancing between the cracked handle of the cooler and back to Hunk himself.

“You’re hungry, aren’t you?” Lance spoke softly, uncurling very slowly so as not to spook Hunk. His shoes thumped down onto the roof as he turned to face his friend. He rested one elbow on top of the cooler, and his dark skin paled a little, clearly remembering what he’d done to get the cooler.

“… Yes.” Hunk said softly into his hand. He lifted his head, and settled dark eyes onto Lance. “It’s been… a... _while_ since I ate anything.”

The Cuban gave him a concerned look. “Why didn’t you eat while you got supplies…?”

“I didn’t want to contaminate supplies when I went out to get stuff for you and Nadia. It’s not exactly clean.” He sighed. His bitten leg throbbed, and it began to bounce as his eyes slid to the cooler. “Lance…”

“Don’t leave.” Lance blurted. “I know what you’re going to say. Don’t leave. Please. Just- that’ll be enough for her, right? She ate until she was full, or as full as a Zombie can feel? So… So you can have the rest of this. You need human to heal anyway, right? Heal up the bite on your leg?”

Fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, Hunk groaned. “Urgh, Lance. There’s nowhere for me to eat up here.”

“Hunk… You’ve watched me and Nadia eat. And you’ve provided for us and taken care of us. Hunk, I’m not going to judge you for doing what you need to, okay?” Lance lifted the cooler by the handle, and then thought better of it when the handle tried to give. He shifted his grip to the side handles, and offered it out. “Eat. Please. I… God, Hunk, I need you here okay? Please. Eat.”

Hunk stared at Lance. He stared at the cooler. He swallowed thickly, and it took him everything he had not to reach out and snatch it with a desperate snarl. Slowly, he reached out to take the cooler, settling it in his lap. “Are you sure?” He asked. “Lance, I’m more civilized than any Zombie you’ll ever see. But I’m your friend. You’re… You’re going to be watching me eat a _person_, Lance.”

“No, I’m not.” Lance shook his head vehemently. “It’s just meat now. I’d be watching my friend eating meat- kinda like a super raw steak.”

“Lance-”

“No, Hunk. _No_.” Lance’s shoulders tensed, and he glanced up at Hunk’s face. He met his eyes. “Just. _Eat_. Please. Eat and talk with me and we’ll get through this, okay? You eat, and be okay, and then Nadia will be okay, and we’ll _all_ be okay.”

All he could do was nod. Hunk rolled his sleeves up, and popped the lid open. He had the first piece in his hand in seconds, and he sank his teeth into it moments later. Flavor burst into his mouth, unlike anything he’d ever tasted, and it took everything he had not to make noises over it. The first piece was down his throat and in his stomach with very little chewing, and then he was reaching for a second.

Lance stared at him. “Is it… is it good?”

“… Yeah.” Hunk mumbled, remembering Lance wanted him to talk. “Yeah. It’s…” He swallowed. Now that he was feeding, the desperate, gnawing hunger in his belly was fading. His leg tingled a little bit. “It’s like… I can’t even describe it. But it’s good. Considering it’s one of two things I can eat, discounting water, I would _hope_ it’s good.”

“Good. Good. I’m glad.” Lance tapped his fingers awkwardly.

Awkward silence descended, and the sound of Hunk’s near frenzied chewing filled it for several long and drawn out minutes. More than just a few minutes, actually. Hunk ate slow, out of forced habit, so it took him a while, and the minutes ticked ever onward. Eventually Lance’s leg started to bounce in agitation, and Hunk watched it. Anxiety filled the air, burning at Hunk’s nose- and he wasn’t sure if angry sorrow was worse than anxiety, or better.

Hearing Lance’s sobs had been bad enough, but he wasn’t sure if it was better to have him sitting there, staring at him while he devoured chunks of human flesh. The anxiety that he could smell was definitely beginning to bother him though. Hunk hadn’t ever liked anxiety, given that he was an anxious man himself at times. His predatory Zombie brain agreed with his normal brain though- food made things better.

Slowly, Hunk offered out a piece of half bitten meat, his mouth too full to speak. “ _ Mnn? _ ”

Abruptly, his leg stopped bouncing and Lance snorted, covering his face with his hand. “Did you _really_ just offer me a piece of meat, Hunk?”

Hunk swallowed his mouthful and nearly choked on it. “I’m sorry!” He blurted, cheeks darkening. “I just panicked. You were smelling like anxiety and food always used to make it better when I was anxious back in school. I guess it was just instinct.”

“ No, no, it’s okay. It’s just… I’m glad you’re still you. Awkward and sweet, and…  _ You _ . Even when eating raw meat.” Lance flopped back against the lounge chair, and tossed his arm over his eyes with a laugh. “I’m sorry. You probably felt super awkward with me just sitting there staring too.”

“I dunno, kinda?” Hunk finished the piece, and licked his fingers clean. He wanted more- he really wanted more- but he wasn’t as frantic now that he’d eaten a good solid chunk of the pile while Lance had been staring at him. “I mean, I just scarfed down probably like, fifteen pounds of human meat like I was a half starved man at a potluck. I’d probably have stared at me too, so I’m not all that upset with you just… Watching. I’m sorry I didn’t talk. The hunger makes it hard to… Focus on much else until it’s calmed.”

“I get it.” Lance sighed softly. “I get it. It’s stuff I need to know, right? For when Nadia wakes up. She’s young- she’s probably not going to have the same kind of self control you do, so I’m gonna have to help her, and I’m gonna need to know what sort of feeding behaviors to expect.” He lifted his arm and looked at Hunk. “You don’t have to stop eating, Hunk. You’ve got to be hungry still, right?”

“I am.” Hunk nodded slowly. “But this is enough. I’ll… find a Zombie later and finish, y’know...” Feeding. “This is enough human to heal me and to keep me from going, y’know.” He made a ‘grr’ face.

Lance pursed his lips. “Hunk, buddy, you _might_ wanna rinse your teeth before you make a ‘grr’ face. You look like you went down on a girl on _that_ time of the month. Hm… Do you think Zombies are into that? Are you into that now? I know it’s not like, actual meat, but… Would it be like a fake meat? Zombie tofu?”

Hunk’s mouth snapped shut and he glared at Lance. “Okay, first off,  _ gross _ . I’m not a vampire, Lance.” He sucked at his teeth, trying to clean them. “Second, give it like, twenty minutes. My mouth is self cleaning. It’s weird as fuck. I think it’s supposed to, I don’t know, keep it clean for Zombie shit. You never see Zombies with rotted teeth.”

“Freaky Zombie dental hygiene. That’s probably the least weird thing about being a Zombie, Hunk.” Lance snorted, before exhaling a soft, wistful sigh. “Well, at least I don’t have to worry about getting Nadia to brush. She hates toothbrushes.”

Hunk closed the cooler, and set it to the side, before leaning back himself. “It’s handy not having to try and find toothpaste. Believe it or not, but fluoride smells _absolutely_ disgusting. And that fake cinnamon toothpaste? Dude, that stuff is _rank_.”

“No shit?”

“Very shit.” Hunk nodded. “You’d be surprised the amount of stuff that smells good to normal people but is absolutely revolting with my sense of smell.”

“… What about-”

“ _ Lance _ .” Hunk sent him a dry look. He understood that Lance was trying to distract himself, but there were even topics Hunk really didn’t want to discuss. “We’re adults. Don’t ask what I think you’re going to ask.”

“But Hunk. I _have_ to know.” Lance’s grin crawled slowly up his face. “After all… ‘he who smelt it first is he who dealt it’.”

Hunk groaned. Apparently he was going to discuss it even if he had absolutely no desire to talk about it. But it was Lance- and Lance, he knew, was trying to distract himself from the little girl in the shed behind them. “Goddamnit Lance. I can’t even _do_ that kinda stuff. Like, piss? I don’t do that. I don’t even shit anymore. Which, like, great, I save loads on toilet paper bills and on potty breaks. If I can’t digest it, I throw it up.”

“That’s super gross _and_ kinda sad. But also kinda cool? Like a more efficient human body.” Lance mused. “I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve nearly gotten bitten on the ass while trying to go to the bathroom.”

“It’s really hard to fake being human in a group of humans when you group poop.” Hunk bemoaned. “Do you know I had to tell the last group I traveled with that I had a shy bladder?”

“That’s actually super funny.” Lance snorted. He sighed, and rubbed his face. “I suppose we’re gonna have to make excuses for both you and Nadia, aren’t we?”

That threw him off kilter. Hunk blinked, mouth falling open as his brain ground to an abrupt halt. “… What?”

Lance blinked back at him, lowering his hand. “Uh. Did you think I’d just abandon you? Like, Hunk, dude. You’re my friend. You’re… You’re one of the last links I have from before, you know? I’m not going to just toss you out. Besides!” He grinned. “If I have to hunt, I might as well make it for two people, y’know? And you can help me with Nadia. She adores you.”

Hunk couldn’t help but stare.

Lance wanted to travel with him.

Lance had just watched him stuff human flesh into his mouth, had watched him devour something that had been a human once. Lance had seen the hunger in his face, had seen him as close to a rabid frenzy as he’d gotten in a long time. Lance had seen him growl when he’d startled himself, seen the black ooze that came from his body. Lance knew he wasn’t human.

And Lance still wanted to travel with him.

“I… Okay.” Hunk swallowed. “Okay. If all goes well, we’ll all three travel together. I’ll keep you both as safe as I can, okay?”

Lance smiled at him. “You look like you’re gonna cry, Hunk. Even if...” He glanced over his shoulder. “Even if it doesn’t go okay, we’ll stick together, okay? Pinky promise.” He stretched across the way, and offered out his pinky finger.

Hunk hesitated. “Lance, my hands aren’t-”

“And neither are mine, Hunk.” Lance was the one who carved up a person to make those slices of meat after all. “Pinky promise?”

He hooked his pinky with Lance, and gave it a firm shake. “Pinky promise.”

They dropped their hands, and relaxed back onto the lounge chairs. “Hey… Hunk?” Lance kept the silence from going away. “Hunk… Has it been long enough to, y’know… Go check on her?”

Hunk checked the watch he kept in his pocket. “We can, I guess. Do you want to come?”

“Yeah.” Lance rocked up, and was on his feet before Hunk was. He helped the larger man up, but froze, his fingers around his hands. “… Hunk? Hunk… What if she doesn’t… What if she isn’t…?”

“We’ll give her all of today, okay?” Hunk shifted his grip, and gently squeezed Lance’s hands. “We’re not gonna give up on her yet. But if she isn’t out of it by the end of the day, she probably won’t, Lance. And...”

“And if she isn’t…” Lance’s dark skin blanched. “She shouldn’t have to live as a mindless thing. Not mindless. It’s… It’s not fair to her. She’s like the sun, Hunk- full of life and vigor and so much prospect. But...”

Hunk tugged him in, and crushed him into a gentle hug. “Lance, I get it. I do. I absolutely get it. Let's go see if she’s out of it, yeah? See if she’s back to being the cute little brat who cheats at UNO?”

That got a wobbly laugh out of Lance. Nadia’s version of UNO was incredibly frustrating to them both, but it wasn’t like they had a whole lot they could do. Honestly, just seeing her happy had been enough. It was good memories that Lance and Hunk both would want to keep.

Good memories were harder to hold onto than bad ones, after all.

“Okay.” Lance finally nodded.

Lance kept a firm grip on Hunk’s arm, and together, the two of them made for the shed door.

There was silence for a few, scant seconds, only the sound of breathing echoing as the two of them looked in, and watched her as she rolled her head to look at them.

And then Nadia lunged against the ropes and began to shriek, snapping her teeth with her dark, glazed eyes locked on Lance.

* * *

“ I can’t do it, Hunk.” Lance’s voice was raw. He sat on one of the lounge chairs outside, his body curled as small as he could as he leaned into the larger Zombie. Lance hiccuped. He’d already been crying for hours. Days. Too many days. He felt like his eyes were going to fall out of his head. “I can’t do it, I can’t do it- I can’t. She’s my niece,  _ mi dulce sobrina, mi pequeño rayo de sol _ .”

And then he was crying again, big heaving sobs that shook his frail shoulders and rattled deep into his ribs.

Hunk tucked him into his side, and rumbled something deep and guttural in his chest that might have been a soothing croon. It wasn’t a human noise anymore, but it didn’t matter. Lance had run out of tears to cry, just as they’d run out of time. They couldn’t keep doing this- they’d run out of human to try and keep feeding her, and Lance was in no emotional shape to go out hunting more.

“Maybe- maybe if-” Lance’s attempt at a sentence dissolved into more cries, echoed by the hungry, angry screams of the child Zombie straining to get out of her ropes.

Feeding her was only making her stronger- and the days they’d wasted because Lance wanted to wait? Eventually she would break those ropes, and there would be no stopping her but to end her.

“Lance...” Hunk rubbed his shoulder, and hugged him as tight as he dared with his still healing ribs. “Lance. We tried my bite. It didn’t work. We’ve been feeding her for days, Lance. I’m sorry, Lance. I’m _so sorry_\- she’s not coming back.”

“ _ She’s all I have! _ ”  He wailed, turning bloodshot blue eyes up at Hunk. “ _ Ella es todo lo que tengo! ¡Si pierdo a Nadia, lo he perdido todo! He perdido a todos los demás, Hunk, ¡no puedo perderla a ella también! _ ”

“ Sometimes, the hardest thing to do is to let them go. She’s not there anymore, Lance. She’s gone- Nadia’s gone. You haven’t lost everything, though. Lance- Lance you have me still. I know I’m not  _ tu familia _ , but you’re not alone, okay?” Hunk buried his nose in the top of Lance’s head, and made the soft rumbling sound again. “Lance… If you’ll let me… I’ll take care of her. I’ll take care of her, and we can put her somewhere nice. I can find her some flowers, and we can put them down for her.”

Lance just gave a wounded noise, and turned to bury his face into Hunk’s shoulder.

Hunk just held him and listened to him sob.

Lance cried and cried. His eyes weren’t producing any more tears, but he was sobbing-  _ mourning _ .

Lance was mourning, Hunk realized with a heavy heart, and likely had been mourning since they’d decided to keep trying to bring Nadia around. Lance was mourning his lost family, and for the little girl they’d tried to save and hadn’t been able to save. His sobs and cries were hard and deep- holding days upon days of stress and trauma and everything that he’d had happen to him. The things he’d done- the fact that he’d killed someone, it had all had to be shoved back for the more immediate issue of trying to help make Nadia survive.

And she hadn’t.

They’d failed.

All of their efforts for naught. Lance had lost his last living family member.

He was long overdue. He could only put it off for so long before he cracked.

And Hunk held him. Hunk held him until he was a spent, trembling mess of snot, until his eyes were swollen and so red that he looked to be drugged. Hunk held him until Lance just went boneless- and then Hunk eased him down gently, and straightened his legs so Lance could regain blood flow.

“Hunk...” Lance’s voice was wrecked. He curled his fingers into a fist in the front of Hunk’s shirt until Hunk looked at him. “Hunk… Tell her I love her. Please. Please… Tell her...”

Hunk gently relaxed Lance’s fingers from his shirt, and cradled his hand in his. He rubbed the back of his warm hand with one of his cold thumbs, and met bloodshot blue eyes with warm honey-brown eyes. “I will. I’ll tell her, okay? And I’ll be gentle. She won’t feel a thing.”

“ _ Gracias. Gracias, Hunk... _ ”

And then Hunk stood, and walked to the shed.

He ignored the gasping hiccups of Lance trying not to cry, and eased his way inside of the door.

Dark eyes and a frothing mouth opened into a shriek, unseeing, uncaring for the hunger that hadn’t been sated. She shrieked at him, no doubt able to smell the scent of Lance clinging to Hunk’s clothing.

Hunk closed the door gently behind him, and moved to the shelf to get his knife.

“ _ Nadia, dulce sol... Soy yo, Hunk. Tu Tío Lance no puede estar aquí ahora mismo, pero quiere que sepas que te quiere mucho. _ ”  He spoke softly, mouth settling into her native language. It got no more reaction out of her than any words before had.

She was twisting her wrists, mangling her little bones and her once baby-soft skin in an attempt to get out of the ropes. She snapped at him, blind with hunger and the need to feed on the closest source of food she could find.

Hunk grasped the top of her skull, and turned her head to the side. Like he’d told Lance, he was quick, and she didn’t even feel the knife that slid up under her the very bottom of her hairline and into brain matter. Hunk had good aim- it helped he had practiced in taking down his ‘food’ as humanely as possible.

He severed the brain stem in one quick slice, and all that was left was the fading embers of bodily reactions. Her teeth gnashed, her fingers twitched, and her eyes rolled blindly. “Shh, Nadia, shh… It’s time to go find your _Mamá_ and your _Papá_ now. They’re waiting with your _Abuela_ and your _Abuelo_ for you to go join them. Shh… Rest now.”

And Hunk thought, maybe, for just the barest instant of a moment, he saw clarity in her eyes- before she gurgled a sad sound and made no more noise.

He slid the knife out, and cleaned the stinking black ooze off of it on the bottom of his pants leg. With tender fingers, he closed her eyes, and cut her free of the ropes, taking a moment to curl her rope-burnt arms around Popo as he nestled the coconut scented bear against her chest.

Let him comfort her in the afterlife, Hunk thought.

His chest heaved, a trembling sob rolling up the barrel of his ribs and escaping out his mouth. His eyes stung like needles were prickling at them, but nothing fell.

“Good night, Nadia.”

* * *

They buried her under a big tree in Clarkdale Park with Popo in her arms so she didn’t get lonely, and, like Hunk had said he would, he’d tracked down as many flowers as he could and replanted them there. By the time he was done, the area around her grave looked like a garden. It was fitting though. He hadn’t gotten to know her long, but she deserved every bloom he could find for her.

Lance wasn’t particularly religious anymore, not after everything he’d seen and what he’d had to do, but he knew Nadia had gone to church with his Brother-In-Law, so Lance had constructed a makeshift cross and had Hunk carve her name into it.

And, once Nadia had been buried, and Hunk had sufficiently removed any Zombies lingering too close to her grave, the duo had set off. But not as friends; as brothers.  _ Hermanos _ .

They didn’t really have any set destination in mind, but that didn’t really matter. No matter where they’d go, that little patch of park in the sunshine of Clarkdale Arizona would always linger in their hearts.

The road ahead was paved with hardship and hard choices, they knew, but Hunk and Lance weren’t alone. Even though they had both lost their families, for better and for worse, they had each other’s back, and that made all the difference.

  
  
  



End file.
